Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: describing names

From:Dennis Paul Himes <himes@...>
Date:Tuesday, August 6, 2002, 2:58
> From: Majken <blueelkgirl@...> > > 1. Her name is Mary > 2. Her name is beautiful > > The first sentence tells me her name, while the second > only describes it. But the only difference is the last > word. There is no way to be sure that she isn't called > Beautiful, except that is an unusual name. How do > other languages solve this problem?
In Gladilatian every sentence is a copula, but between noun phrases, so the adjective would have to be nominalized. The first sentence is: Fetsnau hfena Emery. _Fetsnau_ is "of hers" (more literally "with respect to the sentient being" (fet+sna+u)), _hfena_ is "name", and _Emery_ is how Gladilatian mangles "Mary". The second sentence is: Fetsnau hfena nru. _Nr_ is "beautiful" and _u_ is the nominalizing suffix, so _nru_ is "beautiful thing". "Her name is Beautiful." would be: Fetsnau hfena Nruop. _Op_ turns a common noun into a proper noun, similar to capitalization in English. (The capitalization of _Nruop_ is just a feature of the trans- literation of the Gladilatian into the Roman alphabet; it's not something marked in Gladilatian glyphs.) Similarly, "Her name is Beauty." would be: Fetsnau hfena Nrotop. _Ot_ is the abstractor, turning _nr_, "beautiful", into _nrot_, "beauty". Shameless plug: The adjective _nr_ appears in my novella "A Diamond Found on Paradise" (http://home.cshore.com/himes/dennis/diamond.htm) in the passage: The next question she understood from the Gladilatian before she read the translation. "_Nynr_napu?_", "Are you beautiful?" _Nynr_napu_ is informal Gladilatian, and not a complete sentence. _Ny_ marks the question, and _napu_ is "you". A more formal way to say this would be _Napu_nynru_? =========================================================================== Dennis Paul Himes <> himes@cshore.com http://home.cshore.com/himes/dennis.htm Gladilatian page: http://home.cshore.com/himes/glad/lang.htm Disclaimer: "True, I talk of dreams; which are the children of an idle brain, begot of nothing but vain fantasy; which is as thin of substance as the air." - Romeo & Juliet, Act I Scene iv Verse 96-99